Elizabeth Warren wasn’t attacking Jeff Sessions’s character; she was using King’s observations to expose his support for racist policies.

February 8, 2017

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On Tuesday night, during debate about the nomination of Jeff Sessions for attorney general, Republican extremists silenced Senator Elizabeth Warren as she was discussing Sessions’s record. They did not object to the facts she cited. They refused to hear them.

As part of her remarks, Senator Warren read from Coretta Scott King’s 1986 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee opposing the nomination of Sessions to a federal judgeship. The letter was never entered into the record by then–Judiciary Committee Chairman Strom Thurmond.

Mrs. King’s words, however, were based on facts she had observed about Sessions’s beliefs and conduct. She knew, for example, that as US Attorney Sessions had tried to prosecute one of her late husband’s pallbearers for helping elderly citizens vote in Alabama. Mrs. King knew that her husband had died for standing up to men like Jeff Sessions. She wasn’t attacking his character or pretending to know what was in his heart. She had witnessed the heart of his policy.

Senator Sessions, and anyone else who has a history of supporting systemic racism, cannot be protected from the truth of their own record. We need to have a grown-up conversation about race in America and the ways it shows up in the heart of policies.

Refusing to restore the Voting Rights Act is systemic racism. As King wrote in 1986, “Mr. Sessions has used the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens in the district he now seeks to serve as a federal judge.”

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More recently, Sessions opposed restoring and updating section 4 of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder Supreme Court decision. He sat idly by as the Supreme Court and politicians dismantled and attacked voting rights. As a US Attorney in Alabama, he unjustly prosecuted voting-rights advocates who worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This baseless, politically motivated case ended in unanimous acquittal of these defenders of civil rights. “A person who has exhibited so much hostility to the enforcement of those laws, and thus, to the exercise of those rights by Black people should not be elevated to the federal bench,” King wrote.

His support to repeal health-care access, which impacts 3 million African Americans, is systemic racism. His refusal to support living wages for the 54 percent of African Americans who make less than a living wage is systemic racism. Scapegoating Muslim refugees and mobilizing a deportation force is systemic racism. Senator Sessions has a clear record of promoting xenophobia and religious bigotry; his former aide Stephen Miller, who learned political extremism in my home state of North Carolina, is reported to be the chief author of Trump’s Muslim ban. Sessions has defended the legitimacy of religious tests in immigration policy that could be used to ban immigration by Muslims.

None of this is an attack on Senator Sessions’s character. Senator Warren knows as well as Mrs. King did that Jeff Sessions can smile and be cordial. But his whole political career has been about defending systemic racism. This fact cannot be silenced in our public discourse.

Racial inequality persists in America not because of men in white robes but because of the policies supported by men like Jeff Sessions. Gutting public education in the name of “choice” is systemic racism and has been since Brown v. Board of Education. Using dog whistles to attack so-called “entitlement” programs, which actually serve more white people than black or brown people, is systemic racism. Promoting “law and order” policies that target poor black and brown people for mass incarceration is systemic racism. Talking about voter fraud and crime-ridden communities while plotting voter suppression is systemic racism.

If Senate rules allow this truth to be shut down, then the Senate rules are wrong. While many extremist leaders continue to try to hide the truth of their embrace of systemic racism, we as moral activists will not be silenced. We are called to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God. We will show up. We will sit in. We will cry out. We will not stand down. Those politicians who believe in a moral agenda for this nation must do the same.

I've ordered my Nevertheless, She Persisted t-shirt. What a wonderful example my Senator is for me and for everyone out there who becomes discouraged.

(5)(0)

William J Mac Beansays:

February 10, 2017 at 12:12 pm

It's only natural
Trump is a career asshole, so naturally he's going to surround himself with other assholes.
Assholes rule, and we did this to ourselves.

(2)(0)

Charlotte E Edwardssays:

February 10, 2017 at 12:17 am

This protest was as sexist as racist - 4 MALE De mocratic Senators were allowed to read the letter.

(6)(0)

Aimee Pollack-bakersays:

February 9, 2017 at 9:47 pm

I have an idea. Pass this around Facebook. For all of you you are furious about Elizabeth Warren being silenced by Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor yesterday, I have an idea. Let's all of us send a letter to Mitch McConnell with Corretta Scott King's letter inside. Let's do it. Let's get him knee deep in King's letter. Pass this around. Below is the website for the letter that you can print out and Sen. McConnell's address:
http://apps.npr.org/documents/document.html…
Senator Mitch McConnell
317 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 205100001.

(5)(0)

Winifred Bainbridgesays:

February 9, 2017 at 10:21 pm

I will! Thanks! I already have a copy of the letter and I will get mine off tomorrow. I was mortified and furious when I saw that happen and could hardly believe my eyes. McConnell is a living example of absolute power having corrupted absolutely.

(2)(0)

Doug Barrsays:

February 9, 2017 at 12:34 pm

We're all somewhat racist. It's in our memes. It can only be eradicated with meme therapy, some more radical than others. https://thelastwhy.ca/poems/2014/12/14/racism.html

(2)(2)

Winifred Bainbridgesays:

February 9, 2017 at 10:25 pm

Begging your pardon, but what the heck are you talking about. I've spent a good part of my life dealing with my upbringing in North Carolina, and I can tell you that the way to leave your racism behind is simply to do it. I have black friends and white friends. You need a strong faith and the right family and friends but it's not that hard to do. I have a black daughter-in-law whom I love dearly. Truly, it isn't that hard. My kids are not racist in the least.

(3)(0)

Fred Carusosays:

February 9, 2017 at 6:44 pm

My kids don't know racism, and how it destroys the soul of the racist, as well as it damages the lives of those against whom they practice their racism.

(2)(4)

Fred Carusosays:

February 9, 2017 at 11:23 am

The neo-cons are perverting all the rules of decency in the Senate, and they have been doing it for some time now. We can expect more of this until the Revolution is complete.

Neo-liberal "lesser of two evils" candidates (about half the Democrats) are not be part of the revolution.

Sustaining the hypocrisy, triangulation, and the corporate oligarchy, our corporate-funded Democrats have their own form of latent perversion.

Neo-liberal "lesser of two evils" candidates (about half the Democrats) are not be part of the revolution.

(7)(4)

John Krogmansays:

February 9, 2017 at 2:35 am

The appointment of Sessions as Attorney General is an attack on civil rights in America.

(23)(2)

Fred Carusosays:

February 9, 2017 at 11:27 am

"Attack" is overused. It is a military word.

I would call it a "spit in the face" or a "slap in the face."

(5)(5)

Nation Contributor

Smccroskey says:

February 8, 2017 at 10:41 pm

A person’s character has nothing to do with whether they can be polite (most hypocrites are exceedingly so). It would be more to the point to say that Rule 19 is ridiculous and has obviously never been invoked in an evenhanded manner. If it were (as John Nichols pointed out), it would be nearly impossible to criticize any senator’s actions or statements from the perspective of moral standards.

(18)(1)

Louis Sisnerossays:

February 11, 2017 at 12:44 pm

The rule was invoked be the same Republicans who insist that a Supreme Court Justice must read the law as it is written. The relevant clause of Rule 19 says: "2. No Senator in debate shall, directly or indirectly, by any form of words impute to another Senator or to other Senators any conduct or motive unworthy or unbecoming a Senator."

Senator Warren was not impugning a Senator's fitness to be a Senator. She was impugning a former US Attorney's fitness to be Attorney General. There is a difference.

Besides, a look around the chamber makes it clear that racist assholery is not considered "unbecoming a Senator."

(0)(0)

Betsy Smithsays:

February 9, 2017 at 9:32 pm

The hypocrisy and misogyny of these senators is obvious from the fact that they allowed four white male senators to read Coretta Scott King's letter into the record after they silenced Warren.